[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., LA., OHIO, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 13



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

End the death penalty in NH


To the Editor:

There are many reasons to be concerned about New Hampshire's death penalty. Our 
local group, Monadnock Concerned Citizens, and the New Hampshire Coalition to 
Repeal the Death Penalty are working together to bring information to the 
public about candidates who are running for offices this fall and support the 
repeal of the death penalty.

The death penalty system kills innocent people, and the numbers are sobering. 
Studies estimate that at least 340 people executed since 1972 were likely 
innocent. Also since 1972, 156 inmates have been exonerated from death row. The 
existing system is arbitrary and biased, including economic bias, geographical 
bias and racial bias.

The death penalty does not deter violent crime. Studies by the National 
Research Council concluded that the death penalty does not deter homicide 
rates.

The costs in New Hampshire, with one person on death row, have risen to over $5 
million, and more expenses will be forthcoming. These dollars could have been 
put to better use, examples being investigation of cold cases, prevention of 
crime, rehabilitation of offenders, restoring victims' families, and protecting 
the public better.

Killing others is a traumatic experience. Executioners, wardens, nurses, 
doctors and witnesses are bound legally to be at all executions. These 
participants suffer greatly after taking part in the killing of an inmate.

The death penalty does not help inmates' families. Killing is not justice, nor 
does it give closure to the families.

DALE PREGENT

Keene

(source: Letter to the Editor, Union Leader)






LOUISIANA:

U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to review Angola inmate's death sentence


The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't weigh in often on whether convictions should be 
overturned because prosecutors failed to turn over evidence - 4 times in the 
past 2 decades.

3 of those cases came from Louisiana. Each time, the high court chastised 
prosecutors for violating the rights of defendants and the state's courts for 
letting the problem slide.

Yet, according to defense advocates and national legal scholars, Louisiana 
still hasn't gotten the memo. They're urging the Supreme Court to step in again 
with a stronger lesson.

The high court is expected to decide this week whether to hear the case of 
David Brown, the "Angola 5" member who was accused of plotting to kill a prison 
guard in 1999. His death sentence was endorsed in February by the Louisiana 
Supreme Court after a district judge had overturned it.

Brown's attorneys, in their petition for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, say the 
facts of the case are alarmingly similar to Brady v. Maryland, the landmark 
1963 ruling that required prosecutors to turn over to the defense all evidence 
favorable to a defendant.

The similarities point to a pattern of stubborn refusal by Louisiana state 
courts to follow the Supreme Court's directive, according to a group of law 
professors and legal ethicists who have filed a "friend of the court" brief in 
the case.

Louisiana courts have "an abysmal history of consistently misinterpreting and 
misapplying the Brady doctrine, and there's very little accountability," said 
Ellen Yaroshefsky, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who 
co-authored the brief. "The lesson has not been learned."

Brady violations rarely turn up until long after a conviction and sentence - 
when Louisiana convicts have the right to review the state's complete case 
file. Since only those condemned to death are afforded a state-appointed lawyer 
after their convictions, such allegations of misconduct arise frequently in 
death penalty cases.

Of the 127 death sentences reversed in Louisiana from 1976 to 2015, convictions 
were overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct 25 times, including 9 cases of 
Brady violations, according to a recent study by University of North Carolina 
political science professor Frank Baumgartner and statistician Tim Lyman.

Only 2 of those cases were overturned at the state level, Lyman said.

"It gives a good insight as to what's going on in Louisiana (in regard) to 
Brady," he said. "It's mostly federal court" where convictions or death 
sentences get reversed.

Federal district courts and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have vacated 
numerous convictions when they've found that Louisiana courts botched the 
decision.

Parallels to earlier case

In their petition for Brown, attorneys Billy Sothern and Letty DiGiulio 
highlighted parallels between their defendant's situation and the original 
Brady case.

In the Brady case, the high court faulted prosecutors for not turning over a 
statement from John Brady's alleged accomplice in which he admitted killing 
someone during an armed robbery. Brady acknowledged he was present at the 
murder, and there was evidence that he urged the other man to strangle the 
victim. But the U.S. Supreme Court said suppressing the statement violated 
Brady's due process rights, so it vacated his death sentence.

David Brown has claimed he wasn't there when a guard at the State Penitentiary 
at Angola, Capt. David Knapps, was killed, although he helped drag Knapps 
inside a bathroom, getting the victim's blood on his prison garb during a group 
escape attempt. Brown has claimed he left before other inmates killed Knapps 
and that the murder wasn't part of the escape plan.

The state never accused Brown, who at the time was serving a life sentence for 
a different murder, of striking Knapps. But it argued that he was guilty of 
1st-degree murder for joining in a plot with the specific intent to kill.

Prosecutors Hugo Holland and Tommy Block, however, didn't turn over a 
transcript of a statement from another state inmate, David Domingue, claiming 
that another man accused in the murder, Barry Edge, confessed that he and 
fellow inmate Jeffery Clark alone had decided to kill the guard.

Retired Criminal District Court Judge Jerome Winsberg, who was handling the 
case, overturned Brown's death sentence, but not his conviction, in 2014. 
Winsberg found that "there is a reasonable probability that the jury's verdict 
would have been different had the evidence not been suppressed."

But a state appeals court panel reversed Winsberg's ruling, and the Louisiana 
Supreme Court then found that Domingue's statement "provides no additional 
evidence as to who actually killed Captain Knapps" and "simply does not 
exculpate Brown."

To Brown's attorneys, the ruling marked another instance in which the Louisiana 
Supreme Court skewed the evidence.

"A comparison of the facts of this case makes clear that the due process 
violation in Mr. Brown's case is even more apparent than in Brady," the 
attorneys wrote, "and the Louisiana Supreme Court inserted its own judgment 
without displaying the forbearance and restraint required by Brady."

'Extraneous' objections?

In their response to Brown's petition, prosecutors argued that Brown jumped the 
gun in running to the U.S. Supreme Court when he could still have asked the 
Louisiana Supreme Court to rehear the case; that Domingue's statement wouldn't 
have been admissible at Brown's trial; and that even if it were, it was 
"neither favorable nor material" to his cause.

Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick's office, which picked up the 
case after other jurisdictions recused themselves, described Domingue's 
statement as "wholly extraneous" to what prosecutors argued when they persuaded 
the jury to sentence Brown to death.

That argument "focused on the fact that a life sentence would be the equivalent 
of no punishment at all because David Brown was already serving a life sentence 
at the time of the murder," wrote Connick and prosecutors Juliet Clark and 
Terry Boudreaux.

Even if Brown really had left the prison bathroom while Knapps remained alive, 
he "participated in the attack on Knapps such that he was already awash in the 
blood of his victim," and he left the captain "to the tender mercies of Jeffrey 
Clark and Barry Edge" while moving on to further the escape plan, they argued.

Defense advocates say the decision in Brown's case warrants a rebuke for the 
state judiciary. They say the Louisiana Supreme Court's ruling in the case may 
only embolden prosecutors to narrow their view of what they need to disclose 
before a trial, with little fear of reprisal if they withhold something.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 set a high bar on civil judgments against 
district attorneys' offices in the case of former death row inmate John 
Thompson, denying him a $14 million judgment over withheld evidence.

Thompson was freed after a private investigator found that Orleans Parish 
prosecutors had hidden a crime lab report. Thompson won the judgment, but the 
U.S. Supreme Court negated it. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the 5-4 
majority that Thompson had failed to show that former Orleans Parish District 
Attorney Harry Connick was "deliberately indifferent to the need to train the 
attorneys under his authority."

Brown's defenders claim the Thompson ruling protects district attorneys from 
financial peril for dirty tactics, and that the Louisiana Supreme Court's 
decision in Brown's case signals another forestalled avenue for discipline.

They cite a Feb. 29 letter from Charles Plattsmier, chief disciplinary counsel 
for the state Attorney Disciplinary Board, dismissing a complaint against 
Holland and Block, the prosecutors in Brown's case.

"Because the same court that would consider the potential ethics violation has 
already determined that (Domingue's) statement was not favorable" to Brown, 
Plattsmier wrote, "the filing of a disciplinary charge in this matter cannot be 
sustained at this time."

Previous allegations

Brown's case wasn't the 1st run-in with disciplinary charges for Holland, who 
has made a career out of seeking the death penalty in parishes across the 
state.

Holland formerly worked in Caddo Parish, where district attorneys were 
responsible for prosecuting 1/2 of the 10 cases resulting in death sentences in 
Louisiana between 2010 and 2015.

In a 2000 murder trial, defense attorneys argued that Holland withheld witness 
statements that would have exculpated 16-year-old Corey Williams, who was found 
to have an intellectual disability when the crime occurred.

More recently, Holland and Lea Hall - another prosecutor in Brown's case - were 
asked in 2012 to resign from the Caddo Paddo District Attorney's Office for 
falsifying paperwork to procure 8 automatic weapons for the office.

Defense advocates note that just 1 Louisiana prosecutor in a generation has 
been disciplined for prosecutorial misconduct.

In their "friend of the court" brief, the law professors and legal ethicists 
argue that the U.S. Supreme Court should hear the Angola 5 case "because the 
state courts need guidance, other methods for holding prosecutors accountable 
have not functioned, and, left alone, the Brown ruling has the potential to 
usher in a new, darker age of disregard for Brady."

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide Thursday whether to review the 
case.

(source: The Advocate)

***************

The high costs of court system


Any way that you calculate it, the criminal court system is a labor-intensive 
business, from law enforcement on the front end to lawyers and judges and 
wardens on the back end.

Those costs are causing conflicts around the state and in the State Capitol.

In a dispute between the state's oversight board for public defenders and the 
powerful district attorney's lobby, a district attorney-backed bill will 
mandate a percentage of state funding to local offices, presumably diminishing 
the power of the state public defender board.

That new measure is unfolding amid a funding crisis for public defenders, with 
several offices such as that in New Orleans announcing it will no longer take 
some new cases because lawyers are not available to handle them.

All the time, public defenders are saying they are underfunded because of the 
state???s money woes, and district attorneys point the finger at costly 
death-penalty cases. Louisiana district attorneys may be powerful, but they 
cannot override the U.S. Supreme Court, which has added to the requirements for 
what is an effective defense in those capital cases.

And since a scandalously big percentage of the capital prosecutions are 
overturned on appeal, often because of prosecutorial misconduct, it's a fight 
that is apt to be renewed every year, as finances continue to be strained. The 
state board does a good job overseeing local public defenders' offices, but 
that's not so popular with prosecutors, their opponents.

The new debates are likely to re-open questions of how necessary operations of 
the court system are to be sustained - thorny issues that were worked through a 
decade ago after a round of contentious meetings. Now, we'll probably see more 
of those meetings.

At the local level, governments and prosecutors have financial issues that lead 
to conflicts. In Lafayette, the City-Parish Council voted to cut its 
contribution of $500,000 to the 15th Judicial District Attorney's Office, a 
decision expected to be challenged in court.

District Attorney Keith Stutes, who took office in 2015, argues city-parish 
government is required by law to cover all reasonable costs for his office. His 
predecessor should never have used other funds to pay for salaries and related 
benefits, because that masked the extent of the city-parish's obligations.

"I decided not to kick that can down the road," Stutes said.

We like that approach, as too much in government is based on short-term 
expedience. But what is the ordinary citizen to think of all this?

We see the public defense crisis, for that is what it is, as a challenge to 
order in society. If you don't have a constitutional defense for a defendant 
with no money, you don't have the public benefit of getting bad guys off the 
street, and keeping them away from us.

We do not object to the death penalty, but we smell hypocrisy when those who 
want prosecutions don't want to pay for elements of the process that the 
Supreme Court has mandated. Now, it's a political mess that ought to provoke a 
wider discussion of all the costs - capital cases and ordinary trials - of our 
labor-intensive court system.

The parts have to work together, or the system breaks down. And that fills up 
jails, further raising costs.

(source: Editorial, The Advocate)






OKLAHOMA:

Former death row inmate charged with drug possession


A former death row inmate has been charged with felony drug possession, 9 years 
after being set free.

Curtis Edward McCarty, 54, was charged in Oklahoma County District Court after 
a police officer reported finding methamphetamine in his backpack during a 
traffic stop in southeast Oklahoma City about 4 a.m. May 20.

He was a passenger in a pickup that was pulled over for an expired tag. The 
officer also reported finding 10 small empty baggies and a set of digital 
scales in the backpack.

McCarty "appeared to be fighting back tears" when he was questioned about the 
items in the backpack by the police officer, according to the officer's arrest 
report.

McCarty "said he was ashamed because he was given a 2nd chance after being 
falsely accused of murder and held for approximately 19 years in prison," 
Oklahoma City police officer Jeremy Looper wrote. McCarty "said he was just 
really lonely and that he had trouble finding his place in society after his 
eventual release."

McCarty was charged June 2. He is free from jail on bail. The police report 
lists him as a transient. He did not return messages left at a phone number 
listed for him on the police report.

In speeches, McCarty said he lived at first after his release like a recluse at 
his parents' house in Moore.

After several months, he began speaking out against the death penalty, the 1st 
time in Nebraska, to legislators, at the urging of the Innocence Project. He 
since has traveled across the United States and to other countries.

He was accused of killing Pamela Kaye Willis, 18, on Dec. 10, 1982, at a 
southwest Oklahoma City house. Authorities alleged an unknown accomplice 
helped. Willis was stabbed with a kitchen knife and strangled with a rope.

McCarty was convicted at a jury trial in 1986 of 1st-degree murder and 
sentenced to die. After winning an appeal, he was convicted again at a 1989 
retrial and again sentenced to die.

He was sentenced to die a 3rd time at a resentencing in 1996.

In 2005, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his 2nd conviction - 
and vacated his death sentence - because of misconduct in his case by fired 
Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. In 2007, days before another 
murder trial was set to begin, an Oklahoma County district judge dismissed the 
murder charge because of that misconduct, and McCarty was freed.

He often is identified by death penalty opponents as exonerated, but police and 
prosecutors insisted even after the dismissal that he was involved.

Prosecutors also allege he was involved in the fatal beating of a 7-year-old 
girl in 1983. He was not brought to trial in that case because he made a deal 
to cooperate against another suspect, prosecutors said. He led authorities to 
the girl's decomposed body, according to testimony at his 1st trial.

In 1985, he pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree rape and was sentenced to 5 years in 
prison. The victim was 14.

(source: The Oklahoman)






CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty not warranted for Darnell Williams Jr.


Earlier this month, an Alameda County jury recommended the death sentence after 
finding Darnell Williams Jr. guilty for 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. This is 
the only case that Nancy O'Malley, the current Alameda County District 
Attorney, has pursued since she took office in 2011.

In 2013, Williams Jr. shot and killed an 8-year-old girl who was visiting the 
home of her friend, a member of whose family was believed to be involved in the 
death of a close friend of Williams Jr. He had planned to avenge his friend's 
death with "street justice," according to police reports.

A few months later, Williams Jr. shot and killed a 22-year-old man in West 
Berkeley in an attempted robbery during a game of dice.

Williams Jr. grew up in the East Bay with parents who were both convicted 
felons. His father sits on death row in Indiana for the robbery and murder of 2 
people who allegedly owed his friend money. Mitigating circumstances included 
regular employment, a reputation for aid and kindness to family members and no 
prior criminal conduct. It's clear that this was a crime born out of 
desperation and economic disparity, but he received the ultimate sentence 
anyway.

The statistics for children with an incarcerated parent vary greatly depending 
on race. 1 in 9 Black children versus 1 in 57 white children have an 
incarcerated parent, according to a study by Rutgers University. In California, 
Black men constitute the largest population on death row.

By the time Williams Jr., who is Black, was in kindergarten, he had already 
experienced unspeakable traumas. The horrors continued throughout his childhood 
and well into adulthood.

The United States' justice system has done nothing for Williams Jr. other than 
further his disadvantage in life. He was raised in and became a product of a 
system that was never meant to provide justice for him or people like him. It's 
no surprise then that he took justice into his own hands when he committed the 
crimes he's now set to die for.

During the trial, it was made clear that Williams Jr. suffers from 
post-traumatic stress disorder as well as psychopathic symptoms. Had our 
justice system focused more on prevention - by providing psychological 
treatment and economic support for him - instead of relying simply on 
punishment, he may have had a chance to escape the system that led him to death 
row.

It's worth noting that the United States is one of the few countries in the 
developed world that still has death row. Pfizer - the last open market source 
for lethal injection drugs - refuses to sell to states that enforce the death 
penalty.

Whether one thinks a government-issued death can sometimes be warranted or not, 
it's clear that, in this case, the death of Williams Jr. will be the product of 
a deeply flawed system.

(source: Editorial, The Daily Oklahoman)






USA:

Killing Charleston shooter Dylann Roof won't kill white supremacy ---- The 
death penalty won't deter anything


Dylann Roof, the unrepentant racist who killed 9 people at Emanuel African 
Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., is, without question, a 
monster. He prayed with people before reciting racist cants and annihilating 
people. After his heinous acts, it was discovered that he was a rabid racist 
who had wrapped himself in the Confederate flag. Does he deserve the death 
penalty? No.

The death penalty is the kindest thing that could happen to Dylann Roof, and he 
does not deserve our kindness. The death penalty provides some of us with 
immediate satisfaction, a sense of revenge. And it lets him off the hook. 
Imagine, instead, that this slug is sentenced to life in prison and forced to 
live with the consequences of his action. Imagine that he is incarcerated with 
people who look just like the folks he killed. Imagine that, daily, he has to 
negotiate the racial realties of our nation's prison system, a system that 
disproportionately incarcerates African American men.

Imagine that he is vilified as a symbol of our nation's ingrained racism. 
Imagine that he, perhaps, has a "come to Jesus" moment where he renounces the 
racism that caused him to act. Or, imagine that he simmers in his evil and 
reminds others how heinous he is.

The death penalty is inhumane no matter how it is applied. African Americans 
are disproportionately sentenced to death more than others are, and that is 
part, but not all, of the point. The rest of the point is that "an eye for an 
eye" leaves us all blind. The good people of Mother Emanuel AME Church were 
overflowing in their forgiveness of Roof. Do these forgiving, God-fearing 
people now oppose the commandment that says, "thou shall not kill"?

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, nearly 3000 people sit on 
death row. While African Americans are just 13 % of the population, we are 43 % 
of the death row inmates. Most people don't believe that the death penalty 
deters crime, and many believe that enforcing the death penalty is a waste of 
taxpayer money.

Most prefer alternatives - life sentences without parole, and perhaps with 
restitution. Dylann Roof can turn into a Confederate martyr if he is killed. 
Instead, imagine him as a decrepit old man living his life out in prison, 
constantly faced with his crimes, constantly reminded of his heinous acts. His 
life, not his death, will constantly remind us of the hate that hate produced. 
Because, make no mistake, Dylann Roof is not an isolated phenomenon. He is the 
product of the Confederate flag, the product of the Ku Klux Klan, the product 
of the ugly, repugnant, vicious hate that produces a flawed and crippled white 
supremacy.

We don't kill white supremacist hate by killing Dylann Roof. We don't eliminate 
the ugly sentiments that propelled this extremely sick young man into a church 
with a gun by taking his life. Instead, it seems to me, the sole purpose of his 
life might be to serve as a symbol of hate, to remind us that there will be no 
peace without justice.

Justice does not mean extracting a death penalty that is, inherently, unfair to 
African Americans. Justice means abolishing the death penalty that is still 
upheld in 31 states.

The friends and relatives of the Emanuel AME Church murdered were exceptional 
in their rapid expressions of forgiveness for Dylann Roof. They understood the 
brokenness that caused him to kill and, even as they mourned their loss, they 
offered their forgiveness as evidence of their faith. Can we do anything less?

I say that Dylann Roof ought to be put under somebody's jail, allowed only a 
Bible and minimal bland food. I say that he needs to be deprived of every 
pleasure his victims have been deprived of. I say he needs to be surrounded by 
black folks just like the ones he killed. I'm not wishing him violence or 
harassment, just reflection. Killing Roof won't kill white supremacy. Keeping 
him miserably alive may, in fact, deter others from imitating him.

(source: Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist----The Charlotte Post)

***********************

For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"----So why do so many 
suspects confess to crimes they didn't commit?


"You have the right to remain silent."

If you've ever watched any of the tens of thousands of hours of television 
devoted to crime dramas, you know the 1st warning given to suspects who are 
arrested and questioned. And the s2nd: "Anything you say can and will be used 
against you." The Miranda warnings - named for Miranda v. Arizona, the 1966 
Supreme Court decision that required them - celebrate their 50th anniversary on 
June 13. In that period, they have become so ubiquitous that it's easy to 
forget their origin and purpose.

Miranda was the culmination of 30 years of Supreme Court cases that were 
designed to protect criminal suspects from abuse in police interrogations. The 
earliest of these decisions prohibited violence and torture. The 1st concern 
was to prevent confessions that are "unreliable"- that is, false.

In 1966, false confessions seemed like a rare problem. 50 years later, we have 
seen hundreds of exonerations of innocent defendants who confessed to terrible 
crimes after they received Miranda warnings.

It's a good time to take stock.

Do innocent people really confess without torture?

Why would an innocent person ever confess to a murder or some other terrible 
violent crime?

Torture would explain it. That was the issue in Brown v. Mississippi in 1936, 
the 1st case in which the Supreme Court excluded a confession from a state 
court prosecution. 3 suspects had been tortured for days. Asked how severely 
one defendant was whipped, the deputy in charge testified: "Not too much for a 
Negro; not as much as I would have done if it were left to me."

Between 1936 and 1966 the use of torture to extract confessions declined 
greatly, a major accomplishment by American courts and criminal justice 
reformers. When Miranda was written, a shift was underway to more "modern" 
methods of interrogation: isolation, deception, manipulation and exhaustion 
rather than beating. Without torture or threats of death or violence, it seems 
implausible that an innocent suspect would confess to a serious crime. That is 
precisely why confessions are such powerful evidence of guilt. But we know it 
happens, time and again.

The National Registry of Exonerations has collected data on 1,810 exonerations 
in the United States since 1989 (as of June 7, 2016). They include 227 cases of 
innocent men and women who confessed, 13 % of the total, all after receiving 
Miranda warnings (at least according to the police). Nearly 3/4 of those false 
confessions were homicide cases.

But these exonerations deeply understate the extent of the problem.

First, most suspects who falsely confess - probably the great majority - are 
never convicted at all. In a classic 2004 study, Steven Drizin and Richard Leo 
identified 125 proven false confessions in the United States from 1971 through 
2002. Only about 1/3 were cases of exoneration after conviction. In most, 
charges were dismissed before trial or never filed at all because of 
indisputable proof of innocence.

2nd, few convictions based on false confessions are cleared by exoneration. 
That's true for all wrongful convictions, but especially for those based on 
confessions. It's very hard to convince people that a defendant who confessed 
is innocent. We see this in the cases: Exonerations of defendants who confessed 
are more likely to depend on the most unassailable evidence, DNA, to overcome 
the weight of a confession. 42 % of exonerated defendants who had confessed 
were cleared by DNA tests, compared to only 21 percent of exonerees who had not 
confessed.

In some cases, even exculpatory DNA evidence doesn't help. In October 1992, 
after a grueling four-day interrogation, 19-year-old Juan Rivera falsely 
confessed to the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl in Lake County, Illinois. 
In fact, he confessed twice. His 1st confession was so riddled with factual 
errors that the detectives made him do it again to "clear up" the 
inconsistencies, even though Rivera was plainly in a state of mental collapse.

Rivera was convicted of murder in 1993, and again in 1996 after his 1st 
conviction was reversed for a host of legal errors. In 2005, DNA tests proved 
that a different man was the source of semen recovered from the body of the 
victim. Rivera's conviction was vacated but the prosecution took him to trial 
again, and in 2009, despite the DNA evidence, Rivera was convicted a 3rd time. 
Finally, in 2011, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that River's conviction 
was "unjustified and cannot stand" and dismissed the charges.

Juan Rivera barely overcame his false confession even with conclusive DNA 
evidence of innocence. Without it, he'd be in prison today - together with 
other innocent defendants who confessed but did not have DNA tests to rescue 
them.

False confessions by co-defendants

In many cases, innocent suspects who confess implicate others who are also 
innocent. Some do it because that's the story their interrogators want to hear. 
John Kogut, for example, not only falsely confessed to his own involvement in 
murder, he also said he did it with 2 friends Dennis Halsted and John Restivo, 
both of whom (like Kogut) spent 20 years in prison before they were exonerated 
in 2005.

And some innocent suspects who confess blame others to deflect responsibility 
and reduce their punishment. Richard Ochoa, for example, was facing the death 
penalty for the murder of Nancy DePriest in Austin, Texas in 1988. He 
confessed, named his roommate Richard Danziger as the actual killer and agreed 
to plead guilty and testify against Danziger. Both were convicted and sentenced 
to life in prison. Both were exonerated by DNA in 2002.

The Registry includes 195 exonerations with confessions by co-defendants who 
implicated the exonerees, 11 % of all exonerations. The net result is that in 
19 % of all exonerations in the United States - and in 34 % of homicide 
exonerations - the innocent defendant confessed or was implicated by a false 
confession of a co-defendant, or both.

Who falsely confesses?

All sorts of people falsely confess, but two groups are particularly 
vulnerable: young suspects and those with mental disabilities.

In 1983, for example, Earl Washington, a 22-year-old black man with an IQ of 
about 69, was arrested in Culpeper, Virginia, for burglary and malicious 
wounding. Over 2 days of questioning, Washington "confessed" to 5 separate 
crimes, 4 of which were not pursued because his confessions did not match the 
actual crimes and the victims could not identify Washington as the criminal.

Washington's 5th confession, however, was to a murder, that of Rebecca Lynn 
Williams. His initial version - before police officers cleaned it up - was 
riddled with errors. He did not know the race of the victim (white), the 
address where she was killed, or that she was raped. Nonetheless, Washington 
was convicted and sentenced to death in January 1984. He was exonerated by DNA 
16 years later, in 2000.

Overall, of exonerees with reported mental illness or intellectual disability, 
72 % had confessed.

Young suspects fared almost as badly. 40 % of exonerees who were under 18 at 
the time of the crime falsely confessed, including 53 % of 14- and 15-year 
olds, and 86 % of the few who were 13 years old or younger. By comparison, only 
7 % of adult exonerees without reported mental disabilities falsely confessed.

Why do all these innocent defendants confess?

Innocent suspects confess because they are terrified and confused and 
exhausted; because they are deceived or tricked; because they don't understand 
what they are doing; because they feel hopeless and helpless and isolated. But 
what leads to this desperate predicament? Miranda sets the stage.

In part, Miranda was a step in the Supreme Court's campaign to eliminate 
violence in interrogations. But Miranda also ratified the "modern practice of 
in-custody interrogation [which] is psychologically, rather than physically, 
oriented." Miranda described how this is done:

The officers who conduct "modern" interrogations may lie about the evidence and 
tell the suspect that his fingerprints were found at the scene; that a 
codefendant already confessed and put the blame on him; that he was seen by an 
eyewitness. They routinely say that they already have him dead to rights and 
that this is his only chance to tell his side of the story and help his cause; 
that the victim must have provoked him; that what he did is understandable. 
They may describe dire consequences if he does not come clean, perhaps the 
death penalty, and imply leniency if he does. This can go on for days, in 
isolation, with police officers constantly repeating that they know the suspect 
is guilty, that the evidence is overwhelming, that this is his only chance to 
help himself.

The Supreme Court recognized that this process "exacts a heavy toll on 
individual liberty, and trades on the weakness of individuals," but it did not 
forbid any of these practices. As a result, Miranda is regularly cited as 
authority for the legality of all of these coercive techniques.

Instead of regulating the process of non-violent interrogation, the court 
required police to give warnings before they start, and then only continue if 
the suspect waives his right to silence. But most do waive their rights at the 
outset of the ordeal; it???s hard to tell an officer who has you under arrest 
that you won't talk to him. After that, the issue almost never comes up again.

By the time they confess, Miranda is a distant memory, if not entirely 
forgotten. The process works. Many suspects confess after Miranda warnings and 
most are guilty; that's why these techniques are used and trusted. But some are 
innocent.

Can we do better? Here again, Miranda is a good starting point.

The court noted that it's difficult to regulate interrogations because we don't 
know what goes on: "Interrogation still takes place in privacy. Privacy results 
in secrecy, and this, in turn, results in a gap in our knowledge as to what, in 
fact, goes on in the interrogation rooms."

That's changing. 50 years ago almost no interrogations were electronically 
recorded. The FBI, for example, prohibited recording. Now the FBI requires it, 
as do 23 states and many local police forces, at least in homicide cases. It 
should be universal. Recording greatly helps us evaluate any claim that a 
confession was false, and it has taught us how to improve the conduct of 
interrogations. It's a good start.

(source: Commentary; Samuel Gross is the editor and co-founder of the National 
Registry of Exonerations and a professor at the University of Michigan Law 
School. Maurice Possley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and senior 
researcher at the registry----The Marshall Project)